Christchurch Durham

Christchurch Durham is a Congregational and United Reformed Church built between 1885 and 1886 by J.T. Gradon. The church is constructed of snecked sandstone with an ashlar plinth and dressings, topped with a Welsh slate roof featuring decorative red ridge tiles. It is aligned north-south and showcases a decorated style.

The street front features elaborate hinges on paired, two-centred-arched doors set within moulded arches, which are supported by a central pink granite column. The arches display dog-tooth moulding, and there is a quatrefoil window above, set in a shallow gabled panel topped with a fleur-de-lis finial. Above this, a large five-light window has a head-stopped dripmould. To the left of the door are three cusped lancets, and to the right, there is one.

At the extreme right, a four-stage tower includes a two-centred-arched door facing the forecourt and a two-light window facing the street on the first stage. The upper stages feature blind arrow slits and three small lancets beneath the broaching of an octagonal belfry. The belfry has two-light louvred openings under a frieze and is capped with a stone spire adorned with decorated bands on a gargoyled base. The north aisle contains six lancets, while the clerestory has seven roundels.

In front of the church, there are two square piers with broached octagonal domed coping and cast iron lamp-holder finials. A dwarf wall links the baptistry and the piers, and there is a Gothic-style iron gate on the left leading to a passage at the rear. The rear features area railings made of wrought iron with curved pointed heads.

Inside, the church has painted plaster walls and a boarded dado. It features crocketed cast iron columns and stone-corbelled brackets that support a king- and queen-post roof. The west gallery has been converted into an inserted first floor. The nave arcades have crocketed capitals with delicate spandrels or iron circles, and there is a wide Gothic-style pulpit at the east.